Artist, potter, graphic designer, illustrator

Digital Photography Class – Project 4

Our Project 4 assignment was to show our teacher we knew how to use our digital editing software. We were to choose at least one of these editing processes:

Combining two different photographs into one image

Converting an image into black and white

Utilizing blending modes on two layers

Utilizing text on an image

Adjusting contrast and color to create a more powerful photograph

Other photo editing techniques that allow you to achieve your creative vision

My software is Photoshop CS6

Panorama View

Panorama View

I decided to take photos of the muskeg and mountains in the area where I live and combine them into a panorama image. I took a series of five photos and overlapped the edges in order to combine them correctly later. I used a focal length of 40, shutter 1/160 , aperture f/9.0, my ISO was 100. I used auto focus with this series of pictures.

In editing these together, Photoshop CS6 has a feature in which I was able to do a photo merge to automate the combining of the photos. Nice! There were several options in the photo merge menu. I used the option of reposition and liked the result.

I cropped out a small bit at top and bottom of the image where pixels were missing. I’d taken the pictures in the early morning but there was a haze of clouds that dimmed the light some. In Photoshop I added a cooling filter to help make the sky appear brighter and bluer. I also added a slight vibrancy adjustment. I made very small adjustments with the brightness/contrast and curves, but it didn’t need much at that point. I flattened the layers and resized the image.

Although I was a little disappointed while shooting the photos that the early morning colors weren’t quite what I’d wanted, I’m relatively happy with this final result.

One People Canoe Society

One People Canoe Society

During a break from work, I grabbed my camera and ran down to the dock to try and get photos of the One People Canoe Society canoes which were arriving in Petersburg on their journey to Wrangell for the Chief Shakes Tribal House rededication.

I took a series of photos of the paddlers coming down the Narrows and into the harbor where a crowd of local people were singing songs, chanting and drumming to welcome them.

It was drizzling and the canoers were tired, but they followed cultural protocol and asked for permission to come ashore. With permission granted, the three canoes in tandem paddled away from the dock, turned around to back into position next to the dock.

This photo was taken as they were manuvering the canoes around. I had set my camera in landscape mode hoping to keep everything in the photo focused. My shutter was 1/80, aperture f/6.3. The focal length was 26 mm and ISO was 100.

I wanted to add text to this photo for this assignment. In Photoshop, I first cropped the image to reduce the background clutter and I wanted the canoes to be more prominent in the photo. I sharpened the image and I used curves to make slight adjustments to highlights and shadows. I added a text layer deciding to use a handwriting font. I added a drop shadow and chose a color from the image itself for the text.

Thank you for reading about my adventures using Photoshop CS6. Feel free to leave comments below.